Air Temple Island
by mywildimagination
Summary: Kya and Tenzin don't remember traveling around the world before settling down in Republic City. But Bumi does.


Tenzin may be an airbender, but Dad built Air Temple Island for me. It was a hollow victory, but one Bumi always took refuge in when he got so sick of hearing about his brother Tenzin-who-could-do-no-wrong. After all, Tenzin hadn't even been born when Dad built the place. Mom hadn't even been there. She was pregnant with Kya at the time, so she hadn't flown out on the back of Dad's glider over Yue Bay that day. Bumi did.

Bumi remembered precious little of being an only child, but he savored those early days when he and his parents traveled the world together while Dad performed his avatar duties. Bumi remembered amazing feats of bending, wonderful adventures, and all the foreign dignitaries pinching his cheek and telling him how cute he was. The last part, though not the most appealing, was a small price to pay for the opportunity to live like the original Air Nomads.

So when they landed on a rocky crag in the middle of the bay, and Dad asked him, "Hey, Bumi! How would you like to live here?" Bumi felt a little uneasy. His parents had been talking for awhile about living in Republic City, and staying in one place, like other people did, but Bumi hadn't thought much of it until they started looking for a home there.

So Bumi said, "Dad, I don't want to live in the city. It's gross and gray and ugly, and I don't like it."

He was surprised when Dad threw his head back and laughed. "No, silly," he said. "I didn't mean here _in the city_. I meant here _on this island_."

"What island?" said Bumi. "This is just a little wet rock."

"Well, I'm going to _make_ it into an island."

Bumi lit up. "Really, Dad? Are you going to earthbend it? Will you make it really big? Will you make a big earth slide like at Omashu?"

"If you want me to."

Bumi howled in delight. "Yes! Yes! Yes, I want to live here!"

Dad smiled. "I don't want to live in the city, either," he told Bumi. "Airbenders aren't meant to live in them. They want mountains and fresh air and open sky. And you're just like an airbender, Bumi. You have so much spirit and love of nature."

In later years, Bumi would think back on that comment and bitterly finish Dad's speech for him. _It's just too bad you can't actually bend air, _he would say to himself. But as a five-year-old he thought little of it.

"Climb on my back," said Dad.

"Don't forget your glider," said Bumi, and he picked it up from the ground.

"Actually, I won't be needing the glider. Will you hold on to it for me?"

Bumi was proud to have such an important job for himself. "But how will I hold on to your back?"

"Here." Dad removed some of his outer robes and tore them into wide strips. He used the strips to tie Bumi into place. "Will that work?"

"It's just like when I was a baby and Mom tied me onto her back."

"That's right, Bumi. Just like that. So you're holding on tight?"

"Yeah."

"All right. Let's make an island!"

His tattoos started to glow, and Bumi howled again. "Yeeeeeeeeeeee-haw!"

A sphere of air formed around the two of them, and they rose into the sky. Dad moved into a horse stance, and Bumi saw the water start to tremble. Huge columns of rock shot up out of the bay and grew steadily into rocky cliffsides. Then Dad made sweeping motions with his hands, and several areas atop the island were flattened into smooth grounds. Finally, he removed water from the wet rock, sending mist into all directions.

As they descended onto their newly formed home, Bumi started untying himself from Dad's back. He launched himself off Dad's shoulders and into the air, doing a little victory flip before he hit the ground.

"That was so cool! You've never glowed that long before! Why don't you always use the air ball thing instead of a glider? Are we always going to live here?"

Dad laughed and said, "Yes, Bumi. We're going to live here for a long time. You and me, and Mom, and your baby brother or sister. We'll be like a normal family."

"But you're the avatar. That's not normal!" Bumi laughed and then sighed. "I wish I could do cool stuff like that."

"Bumi . . ." said Dad. He sighed too. "I wish you – I know that – well . . ." He knelt down and took Bumi by the shoulders. "I know you're going to do a lot of cool things in your life, no matter what you turn out to be."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"But you really want me to be an airbender."

"Well, that's just because I'm the last one. I miss the other airbenders a lot. But I love you no matter what."

"What if the baby is an airbender, and I'm not?"

"Don't worry about that, Bumi. You could still turn out to be an airbender, or even a waterbender. Some people don't find out they're benders until they're older than you are. And if you're not a bender, well, then, that's okay."

"When did you find out you were a bender?"

"I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

"I just don't. I was probably too young to remember."

"So you found out when you were really little. But I'm not little anymore. I'm going to be a big brother."

"And you're going to be a great big brother. You don't have to be a waterbender or an airbender to be a good big brother."

"That's not as cool as flying. Or making a whole island. Or making big waves and freezing people inside them."

Dad's face hardened for a moment, then he grabbed Bumi and pulled him close. "Listen to me, Bumi. Doing those things is great, I know. But none of that is as important as the way you treat other people. I've met some amazing benders who've done really great things, but they treated people like dirt. And that got them nothing. They were sad and alone and . . . dangerous. I'd rather you never bend anything than become a bender like that. Okay?"

"Okay, Dad."

Bumi remembered the surprise on Mom's face when she came out to see the commotion in the bay and discovered that her husband had made her a new home. That was Bumi's favorite part of the story to tell, and the one he exaggerated the most, but it was his conversation with Dad that he never mentioned, and the part that stuck with him most.

It seemed to him that Dad had meant what he said, but how could he help feeling loved less when his little sister bent water at two years old to the sound of his mother's squeals of delight, or when tears spilled from his father's eyes coming home to the news that baby Tenzin is the first airbender born in a hundred years? They grew up like Dad, never remembering a time they couldn't bend. Dad's faith in his possibly being a bender at age five looked more and more ridiculous. He'd been so desperate for Bumi to be an airbender, and Bumi had disappointed him. Dad tried to pretend that disappointment wasn't there, but it was.

More than anything, Bumi hated the hypocrisy of it all. Dad had told him it was better to be a non-bender than a powerful one who treated people badly, but Dad was the most powerful bender in the world, and look how he treated his own family. Dad's family always came second to being the avatar. Who was putting the ability to bend over human relations here? Bumi knew it was hard for his dad, and that he really tried to be there for his family, but that didn't make the situation any more fair for Bumi.

He found himself wishing for the old days,when he lived the way Mom and Dad and their friends did during the war, and Dad took them with him to do his avatar duties. When he asked Mom why they didn't keep doing things that way instead of settling down in Republic City, she laughed.

"And raise all three of you on the back of a flying bison? I'm no circus performer, Bumi. It's hard enough raising three kids at all."

"But at least we'd all be together. Dad used to take us to work with him. Now he just leaves us at home."

"Sweetie, you were so young back then, you don't remember how it was like. Traveling that way might have worked for us as teenagers, but with a young family? I stayed at the Southern Air Temple for months before and after I gave birth to you, Bumi, and your father was gone for so much of it – so much more than he is now. And when we finally joined him, it was such a distraction for him and for me. He had such a hard time focusing on what needed to be done, and I could never help him like we always did in the past, because we had to make sure you were safe and keep you from getting into trouble. Most of the time we'd set up camp and you and I would stay there while he went off and averted a natural disaster, or met with some leader, or battled some spirit or threat. . . . I think you and I spent more time with Appa than he did.

"We got it to work, but it was hard. And then I got pregnant with Kya, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I knew you needed more stability, and I wanted our other children to have a better start in life. So we settled down here, and I think it's one of the best decisions we ever made." Mom sighed. "Now, I know it's not perfect, but it's the best arrangement we could come up with."

"Do you think that's why the original airbenders didn't have families? Because being a nomad doesn't work for young kids?"

"I don't know, Bumi. It's true the air nomads liked to travel, but not all of them were the avatar. Maybe some of them did make it work. The ones who couldn't . . . well, that's what the temples were for. To house the people who needed that stability. That's why your father built this island."

Mom would never understand why that conversation made Bumi feel worse and not better. She was never under the impression that Dad had made the island because Bumi wanted him to. She knew the truth: he had built it for her and Kya and Tenzin. Bumi was an afterthought.

It got so that his home became one more thing to resent. He hated living where the acolytes worshiped the ground Dad and Tenzin walked on, and he hated having to measure himself against a family of benders. So he decided to leave. When he asked his parents for permission to enlist at age seventeen, he was expecting it to be hard to convince them. It wasn't.

After a shared look with Mom, Dad said, "You know what? I think that might be just what you need," and that was that. Bumi didn't mind being spared the trouble, but it did bother him how easily they took up the idea of shipping him out for basic training.

There were tears at his departure, perfunctory though they seemed to him, and as he sailed out of Yue Bay, with Air Temple Island shrinking into the distance, Bumi had difficulty holding back tears of his own. Not because he was leaving home, but because he believed his home was never truly his.


End file.
